The Indian Enigma revisited

Liza von Grafenstein, Stephan Klasen and John Hoddinott

No 322717, Sustainable Food Systems Discussion Papers from Georg-August-Universitaet Goettingen, Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development

Abstract: This paper re-enters the contested discussion surrounding the Indian Enigma, the high prevalence of chronic undernutrition in India relative to sub-Saharan Africa. Jayachandran & Pande argue that the key to the Indian enigma lies in the worse treatment of higher birth order children, particularly girls. Analyzing new data, we find: (1) Parameter estimates are sensitive to sampling design and model specification; (2) The gap between the heights of pre-school African and Indian children is closing; (3) The gap does not appear to be driven by differential associations by birth order and child sex; (4) The remaining gap is associated with differences in maternal heights. If Indian women had the heights of their African counterparts, pre-school Indian children would be taller than pre-school African children; and (5) Once we account for survey design, sibling size and maternal height, the coefficient associated with being an Indian girl is no longer statistically significant.

Keywords: Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety; Health Economics and Policy; Institutional and Behavioral Economics; Labor and Human Capital; Research Methods/ Statistical Methods (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 53
Date: 2022-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev and nep-hea
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https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/322717/files/SFS_DP_002.pdf (application/pdf)

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Journal Article: The Indian Enigma revisited (2023)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:gausfs:322717

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.322717

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